The happiest thing was that I see that Junya has turned more and more oniichan for her little sister.

He started treating her like a real friend rather than a toy/baby/rival. He talks to her, shows her how to play things, plays hide and seek with her, teaches her new words, and takes care of her.

He wants to be involved in helping the sister change diaper, brush teeth, etc etc.

It was so heartwarming to see and I feel relieved because I finally can take a breather when they both play together while I cook/work/just relax and watch them play. And put big smiles on my face. 🙂

They fight all the time too over toys and stuff, of course, but even seeing them fight makes me slightly envious. Because for me I never got the chance to even experience any sibling fights. I am the only child. Which is why I die die want to have at least two children because I know it could be lonely sometimes, or all times. And I am very glad that I have the two of them now!!

Swimming

We stopped going to the pool because the weather in SG was so crazy. It is almost always too cold to swim. We are back here now to KL for a week and I quickly get him to practice again.

He is a lot more confident now to use the kickboard and graduate from arm floats!

JunJun says

1.Junya did something wrong and I was trying to get him to acknowledge his mistake.

Mama: You know what you have to say.
Junya: …
Mama: When you do something wrong you must apologize.
Junya: …
Mama: Can you tell me why you don’t want to say sorry? Is it difficult for you to say?
Junya: Yes mama. See, soh, soh, soh… It’s so difficult to say!

2. I was telling him about our upcoming trip back to Japan and he got overly excited.

Junya: Mama I want to go to Japan.
Mama: Yes, we will go next month.
Junya: But I want to go now.
Mama: Sorry I don’t think we can go now. The trip is next month.
Junya: 😞

*5 mins later*

Junya: Mama can we go to Japan? But but… but you don’t say dame (cannot) ok, you just say yes. And you don’t say next week or next month ok. We go now, mama.

Oh dear. I remember the torture when it happened with Junya. Teething for toddlers is the worst. For babies they mostly just drool a lot and chew your sleeve and arm and toe while still looking ultra adorbs. But the monstrous molars, they are so terrible they turn your toddler into a rabid puppy. I could feel her swollen gums, and even tiny whitish bits struggling to sprout through, but these evil pearls just love to troll both you and your toddler. They take MONTHS to erupt!!

Sakura was soooo irritated by her sore, itchy gums that she just bites her own shirt very geramly, chomps on my fingers, and when she’s really mad she scratched my face😭.

And to think that these few teeth are not the end of it😭.

Yeh, Nu, Kah, Poo, Bah.

So. Speech wise, Sakura is less advanced than her oniichan. The good (and bad, I guess?) thing about writing all these monthly blog posts is that it is so easy for me to refer to the happenings with Junya when he was the same age, to compare milestones, etc.

I remember read that Junya could already say a 3-word sentence when he was 18 months old, where Sakura is still at mama, papa, woh woh, chi chi (dirty?)… etc. But she is already 1 and a half now and she has loooooots of things she needs to express. So she’d be telling me “poo?” repeatedly and I’d have no idea what she’s talking about. I could only guess and ask her, “is it poo poo?”, she shook her head in frustration, then I try again “you wanna go to the pool?” then she gets more irritated because apparently her mommy doesn’t understand her at all!!!! “oh you mean push? You wanna push this??” A happy nod and a big grin from her.

I feel really bad because I couldn’t understand her better and help her express what she wants to communicate. I know that a lot of parents teach their babies sign language before they could talk. Maybe parents with younger kids who have this struggle could try out!

But for the past one week, she has started to mimic many multisyllabic words we say to her! Ah purr (apple), nana (banana), tehtee (taxi) nehneh (raining😅)… Junya is having lots of fun to teach his sister to say new words too. (“Sakuwa can you say detergent?“)

Away from Mama

So the biggest changes for Sakura this month were the 3 days apart from me when I was away to Japan, and also her transition from infant class to toddler class.

When I came back she was stuck to me like koala again. I like it🙃

But I didn’t have so much luck with her smoothly advancing to the toddler class. The school was supposed to help her ease into the new environment by bring her over to the new class to mingle for a short while every day, one month prior to the transition.

Then her class had stomach flu spread so she rested for about a week. And then after that the toddler class had HFMD cases so she couldn’t go over.

So when she finally went to the new class as a student for the first day on 1st December, she was screaming like it was day 1 of child care all over again.😑

Bus

So before bed time I usually sing for her, and I’d ask her if she has any song request. She would definitely go “BAH. BAH.”

Nope it is not baa baa black sheep. She means bus. As in wheels on the bus. This is the only song she likes. Sometimes I will suddenly change to a twinkle twinkle tune just to tease her, she’d protest and ask for bus again lol. I wonder why she likes this song so much because it was also Junya’s favorite song ever!!! Then I thought, could it be because it was the most-played song she has everrrr heard while she was still inside my tummy? She literally listens to it alllll dayyyy looong. *completes with hand gesture*

Who’s the fairest of them all

Many people including me observed that she has grown a lot fairer!! I always felt a little sorry because Junya took after papa’s genes and is snow white since he was 2 months old, whereas Sakura unfortunately has my naturally tanned skin. I secretly wished they’d switch skin tone because Junya is supposed to be beach-boy dark and it’d be nice for a girl to be fair.

I’m not sure why but she really magically got sooo much fairer! I am taking natural whitening supplements so could it be they are so powerful it went to her through oppai? HAHAAH. Cuz I really can’t think of any other reasons.

For Mama

Neverending spin

So I was puzzled at why now that both kids go to school 5 days a week, I still feel like I have sooooooo much stuff to do?!

And then I know what went wrong. It’s the daily laundry load that is killing me.

This is the usual laundry amount daily. I have counted, I think I am washing at least 60-70 pieces of clothing every day. There’s everybody’s pajamas in the morning, and the kids change in school so there are four more sets to wash when they are back. And then there are the hankerchiefs, bath towels, hand towels, the danna’s change of clothes and mine. That’s the basic mininum. This is not counting the extra clothes they have soiled or stained.

And on some days like weekends I have to run the washer at least twice, as I wash the bedsheets, the kids’ bedsheets and blankets they use in school… and if we go to the pool, there are moreeeeeeeeeee. One towel and one set of swimwear for every one…

ARGHHHHHH.

Thinking about laundry alone makes me slightly nauseous.

And I’m already secretly using the dryer every. single. time (supposed to save electric but I really can’t, I think I’ll explode if I hang dry the clothes one piece by one piece only to have them drenched in rain again lolol) so that already saves me a lot of trouble.

I once saw a TV program about this Japanese mom who lived in New Zealand with 8 of her children, she described her motherhood as “17 years of either pregnancy or breastfeeding”, and that the laundry is a neverending nightmare. I shudder just to think about it. 8 kids that’s like TIMES FOUR what I am doing now. What is she a kickass robot?!?

Moms 50 years ago had no dryer, heck, not even a washer, and they had to wash like 10 over pax worth of clothings (plus soiled cloth diaper because last time don’t have disposable diaper right? Yikessssssss) and maybe like, in the river? I think they are gods. I don’t know how they do it.

#Pokedad

I left the kids with the danna for the first time in their life for 3 whole days. Usually when I had to travel for work my mom would visit me to help take care of them. But this time I thought it’s time the danna took over.

I picked 3 weekdays to travel (haha kind or not) so that the danna just needed to send and pick them up from school, heat up pre-cooked meals I froze for their dinner, shower and put them to bed.

I actually half expected that the danna and I would end up resenting each other a little, because of all the frustrations and every little things that could potentially go wrong when it comes to parenting two young kids.

But it was the complete opposite. When he sent me photos of the kids eating and having fun, my heart was full with gratitude. If it wasn’t for him I really won’t be writing all the happy blog posts with beautiful photos of Japan. I felt really thankful every day that he was willing to do this for me and the little ones.

The most surprising thing was, on the last day of my trip, he texted me and said, thank you for giving me this chance. I felt a little choked up because I know that he had been feeling a little dejected because the kids had not been very close to him as he was so busy with work (as with most dads!!). They always forever preferred me and reject papa. I think it was a really great chance for him to bond with the kids. Without mama they must be nice to papa lo if not who feed them dinner who bathe them who bring them out for fun right? Haha. He also told me that both kids are soooooo obedient when they were with him.

Turned out that this trip of mine brought our family closer and did us more good than anything else.

Awesome.

Take this as a warm up la ok. Next time when he gets used to it I’ll throw the kids to him for two whole weeks including the crazy weekends while I run away to unchecked prefectures in Japan ok see you bye. HAHAHAA.

This is such a long post, I wonder how you complete this while having to juggle with Junya and Sakura 😂😂 both your children are growing up so well and are obedient. Happy for you! Keep posting the monthly updates of them ya, I’m sure everyone loves reading it 🙂